Comments for Aaron Iba's Blog

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by Matt Gershoff (@mgershoff)

Matt Gershoff (@mgershoff) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:01:30 +0000

Can’t your game be thought of as an MDP? I would think that when you have Markov holding, the iterative approach might be effective. Haven’t given it much thought thought, maybe take a look at some thing like TD-Learning (eg. TD-Gammon)

Comment on Dina Bitmap Font for OSX by Daniel Reeves

Daniel Reeves — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:44:11 +0000

Thanks for making this available! From the screenshot it looks like it’s a fair bit less compact vertically than the good old xterm/x11 font. On a 30-inch screen that gives 120 lines of code per window and, at 80 columns, you can fit 5 windows side-by-side. 600 lines of code all in view!

That reminds me a fancy emacs feature that sounds really nice: follow-mode.
http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/emacs/Follow-Mode.html

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by dwyerz

dwyerz — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 20:46:55 +0000

Great blog Aaron. You have made my day. I have been trying to make an argument for this approach to software development to the developers on my team without much success. This blog is going to be a great way for me to put it in much clearer terms. For what it’s worth, I completely agree with the “Iterate and repair” concept and have found it very successful in my own coding endeavors.

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by Nifty

Nifty — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 06:20:28 +0000

Downloaded Monorail and played it. I must be thoroughly right-brained to begin clicking the “Clear” button on the second puzzle of 5×5 (easy – it said!) But I completed it :) I like the game and its going to stay in my iPad for a while…but I am confident that I won’t ever complete those 50 puzzles in your lite version.

As a normal, non-deductive type user, I loved the 4x4s (I must be smarter than I thought, I told myself, I could sail through those puzzles without losing any time,) and I was feeling so proud of myself when I clicked the 5×5 button…the first puzzle was simple, the second took time, the third…well, it was challenging – I’ll come back to it later:)

So…I asked myself – does the casual gamer really wants to be challenged?

BTW, I loved the puzzle, the simplicity of the idea, and the reward (the train.) Thank you.

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by Nifty

Nifty — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 05:30:49 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experience. In this world there are three kinds of people – the logical-mathematical kinds (also called the left-brained), the intuitive-creative kinds (the right-brained), and those who are on the continuum that connects these two kinds. It appears that you were the first kind but now you are exploring the right side. I am an artist and a graphic designer and so I am more intuitive than I am logical – yet for some funny reason, I like to solve puzzles – I do them exactly the way you’ve described that many in your audience do it – but I assure you that there’s no substitute for logic.

We may be able to solve some puzzles intuitively (and decide not to bother ourselves with the ones that we can’t solve) but we can’t program them using our intuition… so, let us not short-sell logic :)

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by Joe Cheng

Joe Cheng — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:44:54 +0000

Thanks for this post. At first I thought this was a really obvious insight that I had already internalized long ago, but when applied to actual feature-level coding I realize that I have been erring too far on the side of CLD. I definitely have bouts of spinning in analysis paralysis mode when starting on a large, ambiguous problem with many possible solutions, and I&R is probably the most effective way to at least start building momentum.

BTW for the logical conclusion of CLD, see Feynman Algorithm[1]:

1. Write down the problem.
2. Think real hard.
3. Write down the solution.

[1] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FeynmanAlgorithm

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by bmc1313

bmc1313 — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:42:06 +0000

I’d say iterative design would be great for those instances as well with our computer simulation abilities. Some type of automated genetic design sequence combined with simulation might work very well.

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by aoberoi

aoberoi — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:52:44 +0000

I actually wish the opposite. It seems like time and time again I see people getting ahead just because they are more comfortable jumping in and failing. This discomfort I have with a lack of tactical strategy seems to hold me back from getting it done quicker. For example, I will read documentation when I need to program with a new language or framework, spending up to 200% of the implementation time just constructing the conceptual models for myself.

Comment on Lifting weights will give you a heart attack and ruin your sex drive by MichaelEdits

MichaelEdits — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:46:20 +0000

A headline this catchy deserves to be tweeted. Incoming traffic alert…

Comment on Users of my iOS Game Teach Me a Lesson MIT Didn’t by MichaelEdits

MichaelEdits — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:24:11 +0000

Hmm. As a novelist I’ve always been what they call a pantser, flying by the seat of my pants and fixing the mess later. Iterate, repair, blow up, whatever. But as a programmer or problem solver, I’ve never done that. I’ve always planned and plotted. I’m going to have to think about that. I’m planning my ninth novel in advance. Why not try “switching sides” on programming or problem solving too? I won’t tackle this tax paperwork by the seat of my pants, but otherwise…